Phonology in the Lexical Processing of Chinese: Priming Tone Neighbors

Using both visual-visual and auditory-visual priming lexical decision tasks, this study investigated phonological processing in reading logographic Chinese. Compound words sharing segmental templates but differing in lexical tones were used as primes and targets while their relative frequency was manipulated. It was found that tone neighbours did not prime each other significantly and the SOA of 100 msec in visual-visual priming. When the SOA was increased to 357 msec, or when primes were presented auditorily, the processing of target words was significantly delayed by their tone neighbours. Larger inhibitory effects were observed for low frequency targets with high frequency primes. It was argued that although phonological information is automatically activated and this activation affects access to semantics in reading Chinese,phonological mediation is not the only or the main ~urce of constraints on semantic activation.     

再探汉字加工中语音、语义激活的相对时间进程

在Zhou和Marslen-Wilson（2000）基础之上,进一步探讨汉字加工中语音和语义信息激活的相对时间进程及其对汉字加工理论的含义。采用启动范式,用同一目标字与语义相关启动字、同音启动字以及无关控制启动字配对,变化同音启动字读音与其声旁的规则性,变化启动字与目标字呈现之间的时间间隔（SOA,57ms或200ms）,使用两种实验任务（真假字判断和命名）,考察语义、语音效应发生的时间先后与效应量的大小。真假字判断实验发现,不管SOA如何,语义启动效应都非常显著,而同音启动效应则随SOA的增长而逐渐加大,从不显著到显著;同音启动字读音规则性对启动效应没有明显影响。命名实验发现,语义启动、同音启动效应同时存在于长、短SOA条件中。长SOA时,两者在数值上没有显著差异;短SOA时,同音不规则字产生的启动效应等同于语义启动效应,而同音规则字产生的启动效应则大于语义启动效应。结合其它实验发现,这些结果说明,在熟练的汉字加工中,语音信息的激活并不比语义信息早,语音激活也不是语义激活的先决条件;但汉字各种信息激活的相对激活量和时间进程会随任务性质和材料性质而在一定范围内有所改变。     

Retroactive semantic priming in a lexical decision task

The present study reports two experiments that required subjects to name target items preceded by a masked prime. Additionally, and subsequent to the naming task, subjects were required to indicate whether or not the prime was a word, along with a confidence rating of their lexical decision. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the processing of masked primes is facilitated by related targets when such targets are presented either 100 or 200 msec after the onset of the prime. Experiment 2 extends the finding of “retroactive” priming to a 1000=msec separation in prime-target presentation (SOA). The extent of retroactive priming is not dependent on SOA between prime and target, nor is it affected by the prime-mask SOA, which varied from 10 to 180 msec. Priming of targets was also independent of prime-target and prime-mask SOA, providing that primes had been classified as words. For word primes classified as non-words there was no semantic priming on target naming reaction time. Implications of these findings with respect to the nature of retroactive priming and the current controversy concerning subliminal priming effects were discussed.     

词素效应到底是什么？——来自维吾尔语的证据

利用维吾尔语的一些特点,采用视觉－视觉启动、听觉－视觉跨通道启动、和延迟重复启动等三种启动技术,改变目标词和启动词之间在词素、词形以及语义上的多种关系,通过比较启动效应的异同,来考察词素效应是否可以还原为词形启动效应、语义效应,是否可以看成是词形和语义在实时加工中相互作用的后果,从而探讨词汇加工中词素效应的实质。实验一发现,在明确配对的视觉－视觉和跨通道启动中,启动词和目标词之间只有在具有词素加语义关系（＋m＋o＋s / D,＋m＋o＋s / R;其中,m 代表词素,o 代表词形,s 代表语义,D 代表目标词为派生词,R代表目标词为自由词根;＋ 表示启动词和目标词之间在某个维度上相关,－表示启动词和目标词之间在某个维度上无关）时或者仅仅具有语义关系（－m－o＋s / D）时,才有显著的启动效应。如果启动词与目标词之间仅仅具有词素（词形）关系,而没有语义关系（＋m＋o－s / D）,或者仅仅具有词形关系（－m＋o－s / R）,它们之间的启动效应微乎其微。实验二通过使用维吾尔语中的借词和延迟启动技术,比较了词素加语义加词形（＋m＋o＋s / D）的启动和语义加词形启动（－m＋o＋s / D）以及语义启动（－m＋o＋s / D）,发现词素启动效应并没有不同于其他启动条件下的效应。两个实验都表明,语义关系是产生启动效应的关键,没有语义相关,就不可能产生词素启动,词素效应依赖于语义效应。有了语义关系,词素关系和词形关系产生的作用很小。因此,词汇加工的词素效应是词形和语义统计学规律的反应,是词形和语义加工相互作用的后果,心理词典中并不需要明确地表征词汇结构。     

The relative time course of semantic and phonological activation in reading Chinese

The relative time course of semantic and phonological activation was investigated in the context of whether phonology mediates access to lexical representations in reading Chinese. Compound words (Experiment 1) and single-character words (Experiments 2 and 3) were preceded by semantic and phonological primes. Strong semantic priming effects were found at both short (57 ms) and long (200 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), but phonological effects were either absent in lexical decision (Experiment 1), were present only at the longer SOA in character decision (Experiment 2) or were equally strong as semantic effects in naming (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 revealed facilitatory or inhibitory effects, depending on SOA, in phonological judgments to character pairs that were not phonologically but semantically related. It was concluded that, in reading Chinese, semantic information in the lexicon is activated at least as early and just as strongly as phonological information.     

Amodal processing of visual speech as revealed by priming

This study investigated the linguistic processing of visual speech (video of a talker's utterance without audio) by determining if such has the capacity to prime subsequently presented word and nonword targets. The priming procedure is well suited for the investigation of whether speech perception is amodal since visual speech primes can be used with targets presented in different modalities. To this end, a series of priming experiments were conducted using several tasks. It was found that visually spoken words (for which overt identification was poor) acted as reliable primes for repeated target words in the naming, written and auditory lexical decision tasks. These visual speech primes did not produce associative or reliable form priming. The lack of form priming suggests that the repetition priming effect was constrained by lexical level processes. That priming found in all tasks is consistent with the view that similar processes operate in both visual and auditory speech processing.     

Identity priming in English is compromised by phonological ambiguity.

If it takes longer to achieve a single phonological representation for inconsistent words (e.g., BOWL) than for consistent words (e.g., BENT), and if phonological coherence is pivotal to visual word recognition, then identity priming should depend on consistency. This hypothesis was evaluated in naming and lexical decision within a 4-field presentation sequence of mask-prime-mask-target. The prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was either 114 or 244 ms (with prime durations, respectively, of 43 and 129 ms). Four experiments compared identity primes such as BOWL and BENT, which were equated, on average, for total number of friendly and unfriendly neighbors, bigram frequency, and number of 1-letter-different neighbors. In both tasks, BENT primed itself better than BOWL primed itself, with the difference being larger at the shorter SOA. Word processing is constrained primarily by the rate of achieving a coherent phonological code.     

Cross-script phonological priming with Japanese Kanji primes and English targets

Two experiments investigated whether Japanese–English bilinguals have integrated phonological stores for their two languages using a masked phonological priming task with Japanese Kanji (logographic) primes and English targets. In both experiments, lexical decisions for English target words were facilitated by phonologically similar Kanji primes. Furthermore, the size of the phonological priming effect was uninfluenced by the participants' English proficiency or target word frequency, which suggests that the priming effect arose from feedback from sublexical phonological representations to lexical orthographic representations. Because of the orthographic and phonological differences between Japanese and English, these findings provide particularly strong support for the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA+) model's assumption that representations are integrated across languages.     

Are coffee and toffee served in a cup? Ortho-phonologically mediated associative priming

We report three masked associative priming experiments with the lexical decision task that explore whether the initial activation flow of a visually presented word activates the semantic representations of that word's orthographic/phonological neighbours. The predictions of cascades and serial/modular models of lexical processing differ widely in this respect. Using a masked priming paradigm (stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA = 50 ms), words preceded by ortho-phonologically mediated associated “neighbours” (oveja–MIEL, the Spanish for sheep–HONEY; note that oveja is a phonological neighbour of abeja, the Spanish for bee) were recognized more rapidly than words preceded by an unrelated word prime (Experiments 1 and 3). Furthermore, the magnitude of the ortho-phonologically mediated priming effect (oveja–MIEL) was similar to the magnitude of the associative priming effect (abeja–MIEL). With visible primes and a 250-ms SOA, only the directly associated words showed a priming effect (Experiment 2). These findings pose some problems for a modular account and are more easily interpreted in terms of cascaded models.     

汉字阅读中语音的通达与表征(Ⅰ)──字水平与亚字水平的语音及其交互作用

该文探讨了汉字语音激活的多层次性、普遍性、整字与声旁语音激活资源之间的交互作用等问题。以启动一命名为实验范式,结果表明：在汉字加工早期,汉字的语音得到了显著激活,而且这一激活发生在整字和声旁两个水平、高频和低频两种汉字中;整字与声旁的语音激活存在交互作用,而该交互作用受到整字与声旁的相对频率的影响。根据实验结果,该文提出：汉字整字和声旁的语音激活之间遵循“整字优先”和“高频优先”的原则交互作用。     

Semantic Processing of Foveally and Parafoveally Presented Words in a Lexical Decision Task

Using a lexical decision task in which two primes appeared simultaneously in the visual field for 150 msec followed by a target word, two experiments examined semantic priming from attended and unattended primes as a function of both the separation between the primes in the visual field and the prime-target stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA). In the first experiment significant priming effects were found for both the attended and unattended prime words, though the effect was much greater for the attended words. In addition, and also for both attention conditions, priming showed a tendency to increase with increasing eccentricity (2.3°, 3.3°, and 4.3°) between the prime words in the visual field at the long (550 and 850 msec) but not at the short (250 msec) prime-target SOA. In the second experiment the prime stimuli were either two words (W-W) or one word and five Xs (W-X). We manipulated the degree of eccentricity (2° and 3.6°) between the prime stimuli and used a prime-target SOA of 850 msec. Again significant priming was found for both the attended and unattended words but only the W-W condition showed a decrement in priming as a function of the separation between the primes; this decrement came to produce negative priming for the unattended word at the narrow (2°) separation. These results are discussed in relation to the semantic processing of parafoveal words and the inhibitory effects of focused attention.     

汉语听觉词汇加工中声调信息对语义激活的制约作用

进行了三个跨通道启动词汇判断实验,探讨汉语听觉词汇加工中声调信息对语义激活的制约作用。实验一和二使用具有相同音段信息、但不同声调信息的双音节合成词（如“条约”和“跳跃”）作为听觉启动词,与其中一个词有语义关系的双字词作为视觉探测词。语义启动词与其配对的声调不匹配词在第一音节的声调、第二音节的声调、或两个声调上有所不同。实验三改变语义启动词的第一或第二音节的声调,以产生声调不匹配的假词启动项;实验三还同时变化了原来的声调与产生的声调之间的相似性。实验结果表明,声调不匹配的启动项目是否产生显著的启动效应取决于词汇竞争的环境、声调输入与深层声调表征之间匹配的程度,以及不匹配的声调所在的位置。文章从语音输入中的声调信息如何激活词汇表征、声调信息如何存储在心理词典中、声调对语义激活的制约作用如何受竞争环境的影响这三个方面讨论了研究的发现。     

An anxiety-related bias in semantic activation when processing threat/neutral homographs

Three experiments are reported comparing high and low-trait anxious subjects in terms of their patterns of semantic activation in response to ambiguous primes, with one threat-related and one neutral meaning. Such primes were followed by targets related to either their threat or neutral meaning, or by unrelated targets, in a lexical decision task. Experiments 1 to 3 employed stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 750 msec, 500 msec, and 1250 msec, respectively. At 500-msec SOA all subjects showed facilitation for both meanings. At 750-msec SOA the only significant priming effect was that for the threat-related meaning in the high-anxiety group, and a similar trend was found at 1250-msec SOA. Consideration of the patterns of priming for targets following ambiguous threat/neutral primes suggest that at the longer SOAs, high-anxiety subjects consciously “lock on” to a threatening interpretation if one has been made available by earlier automatic spreading activation.     

汉语听觉阈下启动效应：来自听觉掩蔽启动范式的证据

使用汉语双字词为实验材料,采用听觉掩蔽启动范式,通过3个实验考察汉语听觉阈下启动效应。结果发现,真词的听觉阈下重复启动效应显著,并且听觉阈下重复启动效应不受启动、目标发音者性别一致性的影响。但真词的阈下语音、语素和语义启动效应及假词的阈下重复和首字启动效应都不显著。这些结果说明,听觉通道阈下呈现的汉语双字词的词汇水平信息可以得到无意识加工。汉语双字词的听觉阈下启动效应可能是基于启动词整词表征的无意识激活。     

Looks aren’t Everything: Pseudohomophones Prime Words but Nonwords do not

After examining literature that deals with phonological and orthographic effects associated with pseudohomophones, the current effort deviates from the norm by using fewer pseudohomophones (20) and extending the lags between primes and targets (M=8). Word and pseudohomophone primes were found to facilitate lexical decision response latencies to word targets. Response latencies to word targets were not influenced by nonword primes, however. The presence of pseudohomophone effects was demonstrated by longer response latencies and higher error rates for pseudohomophones (e.g., DREEM) that were equated in orthography to nonword controls (e.g., DROAM). Despite the frequency effect observed for base words, the pseudohomophones did not exhibit an effect of base word frequency. The results suggest that phonological codes exert an influence on lexical representation but are not frequency sensitive.     

Silent letters and phonological priming

Many written English words contain silent letters. Omitting them produces nonwords pronounced identically to the original words, for example, SALM for PSALM and COLUM for COLUMN. We report two naming and two lexical decision experiments in which targets of 4–11 letters followed primes exposed for 100 ms in mask-prime-mask-target sequences. Priming in SALM-psalm and COLUM-column pairs exceeded priming in orthographic control pairs such as ASTA-pasta and COUSI-cousin, pairs in which pronounced letters are omitted to form the primes. SALM and COLUM, however, were less effective primes than PSALM and COLUMN. Results were discussed in terms of the phonological coherence hypothesis, the role of orthographic codes in filtering phonologically activated representations, and graphemes as reading units.     

Strategic reliance on phonological mediation in lexical access

The present study investigated strategic variation in reliance on phonological mediation in visual word recognition. In Experiment 1, semantically related or unrelated word primes preceded word, pseudohomophone (e.g.,trane), or nonpseudohomophone (e.g.,trank) targets in a lexical decision task. Semantic priming effects were found for words, and response latencies to pseudohomophones were longer in related than in unrelated prime conditions. In Experiment 2, related or unrelated word primes preceded word or pseudohomophone targets. A relatedness effect was found for words, although it was significant at a 600-msec prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and not at a 200-msec SOA. There was no relatedness effect for pseudohomophones. Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 2, except that pseudohomophones were replaced by nonpseudohomophonic orthographic controls. Facilitation effects for related target words were greater in Experiment 3 than in Experiment 2. The results reflect apparent variations in the expectation that a related prime reliably indicates that a target is a word. Although reliance on phonological mediation might be strategically contingent, there could be a brief time period in which phonologically mediated lexical access occurs automatically. Whether phonological information is maintained or suppressed subsequently depends on its overall usefulness for the task.     

Phonological and conceptual activation in speech comprehension

We propose that speech comprehension involves the activation of token representations of the phonological forms of current lexical hypotheses, separately from the ongoing construction of a conceptual interpretation of the current utterance. In a series of cross-modal priming experiments, facilitation of lexical decision responses to visual target words (e.g., time) was found for targets that were semantic associates of auditory prime words (e.g., date) when the primes were isolated words, but not when the same primes appeared in sentence contexts. Identity priming (e.g., faster lexical decisions to visual date after spoken date than after an unrelated prime) appeared, however, both with isolated primes and with primes in prosodically neutral sentences. Associative priming in sentence contexts only emerged when sentence prosody involved contrastive accents, or when sentences were terminated immediately after the prime. Associative priming is therefore not an automatic consequence of speech processing. In no experiment was there associative priming from embedded words (e.g., sedate-time), but there was inhibitory identity priming (e.g., sedate-date) from embedded primes in sentence contexts. Speech comprehension therefore appears to involve separate distinct activation both of token phonological word representations and of conceptual word representations. Furthermore, both of these types of representation are distinct from the long-term memory representations of word form and meaning.     

Lexical and sublexical processes in the perception of transposed-letter anagrams

Evidence from priming and lexical decision tasks suggests that nonwords created by transposing adjacent letter pairs (TL nonwords) are very effective in activating lexical representations of their base words, because the process of orthographic matching tolerates minor changes in letter position. However, this account disregards the possible role of sublexical processing in reading. TL nonwords are perceptually ambiguous, with lexical and sublexical processing giving rise to conflicting interpretations. The consequences of this ambiguity were investigated in a lexical decision experiment with primes that were either high or low bigram frequency TL versions of target words. Priming effects were much larger for low BF primes (e.g., pucnh-PUNCH) than for high BF primes (e.g., panit-PAINT). This finding is interpreted as evidence that lexical activation can be inhibited by competing output resulting from sublexical processing of TL letter string. We conclude that phonological processing is an important determinant of responses to TL stimuli, and we consider how this interpretation might be accommodated within the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of word recognition.     

连绵词语音类似的启动效应

研究采用快速启动范型考察了视觉连绵词加工中语音的自动激活.两个实验发现,无论是首字同音还是尾字同音启动都可以促进对连绵词的命名反应,且基本不受目标词熟悉性(词频高低)及真假词的影响.可以推断,至少在连绵词--这种单词素词的词汇通达中存在语音的自动激活,这种语音的激活可以说是前词的装配与词水平上的改变.